Work Text:
The whine breaks through the insulation on the workshop’s walls, vibrates through Chess’ noise-cancelling headphones, and settles into her jaw. It makes her all too aware of the concrete implants that allow her to freely breathe, because the vibrations are shaking them loose in their settings.
It hurts.
Chess leans against her workbench, conscious enough to hit the safety shut-offs on her tools, and grabs her radio. “John,” she gasps, “something’s wrong.”
“No shit,” he says. “Have you l—”
The radio dies in her hand with a spark and a sputter, cutting off whatever useful information John was going to impart.
Chess stares at the handful of now-useless metal. It’s not a comfort to know that whatever is happening to her is happening to all technology, but she mostly doesn’t think of herself as a technological being. Being reminded in such a forceful way sucks.
Then the whine changes pitch and Chess collapses, lungs heaving, the air raspberry-sweet on her tongue as she crawls towards the emergency kit. There’s a sealed block of concrete there; she can break the seal and give herself enough air and time to get somewhere safe while her implants are on the fritz.
It feels like it’s a mile away, though it can’t be more than three meters. Gravity feels like it’s been doubled at least. Her pulse is too fast. Her breath comes slow and wheezing. She keeps her eyes fixed on her goal even as everything around it turns gray.
She makes it.
Her jaw feels like it’s breaking and her lungs are seizing and the world is black around the edges as she drags the kit down off its shelf and tears it open. The first breath of proper air tastes so heady Chess feels drunk, face pressed against the stone she’s taken for granted for so long. It doesn’t numb her implants, but she can tolerate that pain better when she’s not hypoxic.
Chess is still sitting there, recovering, when John breaks into her workshop. His tail’s puffy from fright, cat ears pinned back and hidden in his hair, eyes wide as he scans the room for her. “Fuck,” he says as he catches sight of her. His whole body uncoils as he sits down beside her, already curling an arm around her shoulders. “I was afraid—”
“What happened?” Chess asks. She leans into John, trusting his solidity and his knowledge. Even as she’d felt herself falling unconscious, she’d known he would find her, that he wouldn’t let her die.
“I don’t know.” John is at least as frustrated as she is. “That sound broke everything, and then the Mirage filled the sky, and— You called, and I didn’t have time to think about anything else.”
Chess closes her eyes and cradles the life-saving concrete close. “Thanks.” Every word hurts, but there’s one more thing she needs to say, so Chess gestures at her jaw. “I need to go home until we figure out how to fix this.” She doesn’t want to move at all, but she knows she needs to; this block isn’t meant to last for long.
John touches her implants, fingers cool and gentle against the swelling. “Fuck.” He sighs and presses his forehead against hers. “We need— You aren’t the only concretist here. We’ll need emergency transports. What’s even still working? If I need to ask Alder and Truth, I will, but I’d rather not need a Divine’s intervention.”
It’s a relief to hear John working out logistics. “They’ll help,” she says as he chivvies her upright.
John rolls his eyes. “Of course he’d help. And then he’d hang around trying to continue being helpful even when he’d be more useful somewhere else.”
Chess concedes the point. Alder means well; he just goes a little overboard sometimes. But he and John have never gotten along, and Chess isn’t in the mood to argue, so instead she lets John take her weight and help her down the halls to the Concretists’ saferoom. Every Cause base has one somewhere; it’s meant as an emergency measure, half shelter and half medical bay, and Chess is grateful for it even as she begins calculating how overstuffed the room is going to be.
Two dozen people in a room meant to hold half that number isn’t as bad as Chess had feared, but it’s not pleasant. John disappears as soon as Chess is inside, reassuring everyone that he’s going to arrange for their transport back to a Concretist town as soon as possible.
Chess tucks herself into a corner and listens to the chatter. Everyone’s saying something a little different. Everyone’s afraid. Technology is on the fritz, their methods for moving freely across the world are breaking, and nobody knows what will happen now that they’re in the Twilight Mirage.
The sunset-shaded sky means everything has changed. Historically, Palisade has sometimes dipped into the Twilight Mirage, but it’s never been consumed like this. Chess itches to know what new possibilities are available, and sinks into theorising because it’s an escape from worry and the awareness of too many bodies around her.
She’s in the middle of wondering how the Twilight Mirage’s light is going to affect grow cycles when the door opens. Chess blinks, eyes fuzzy after so long closed, but she knows the person standing there. He’s thrown a jacket over his tight flight-suit, but it doesn’t conceal any of the muscles he’s gained since joining their cause, and he’s looking at her with concern.
Alder turns away as soon as he realises she’s looking at him and speaks to the whole room, confidence rich in his voice. “If you have enough concrete for an hour-long flight in a shuttle, I can get you to Creston.”
They do. The room has tiles they can tear apart, each member carrying two or three—extra won’t hurt, and they can rebuild the room once they understand what’s happening—as they follow Alder down the halls to a dead shuttle and Truth.
Even kneeling, the Divine towers over them. Her marble skin conceals concrete, something Chess can now smell; Truth is pushing away the effects of whatever-this-is, and Chess suspects she could potentially shelter them herself if she had to.
“Thank you,” Chess says as Alder helps them into the shuttle, making sure everyone is strapped into seats even though the engines are dead.
Alder grins at her, a small expression tucked into the corner of his eyes. It’s a real one, almost shy, and it immediately gets covered by the prideful smile much more frequently on his face. “It’s the right thing to do.” He touches her shoulder lightly, carefully; she wishes he would be more forthright, but she’s heard John hiss warnings. “I won’t be able to stay.”
“This won’t last long,” Chess says, aware everyone’s listening to them now. She swallows, pretends she has the same confidence Alder does, adds, “As soon as we have the space to understand what’s happened, we’ll be able to solve this issue.”
“I believe in you,” Alder says, looking into her eyes, meaning every single word for her alone.
Chess blushes, ducks her head, takes her seat. She’s the last one to buckle in, and the only one Alder doesn’t check in on.
He just nods at her, serious as ever, and then exits the shuttle.
Truth’s hands close gently around them a minute later, and then they lift into the new sky. Chess leans against the window, staring out at the Twilight Mirage as Truth soars across Palisade.
She doesn’t like sudden change, but—
Oh, the possibilities this unlocks, once they understand what’s happened, are as beautiful as the sunset clouds billowing around them.
Chess can’t wait until she can start making new plans for the future opening up before them.